The Portly Chef

Yesterday’s lenghty post on my homemade ketchup making has taken the fire out of me. So I thought I would offer up a collection of recent interesting food stories from around the country.

• Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune has followed up the story on Maytag blue cheese (that served as the muse for my post below) with a story on proper wine pairing with blue cheese. I particularly think the pairing of regional wines with regional cheeses is a must. (Free registration required)

• While fine dining used to be for royalty, we now treat those who cook for us like royalty, or so says Frank Bruni in this scathing review of famous New York restaurants and their chefs, “where the open kitchens sometimes seem less like peepholes for [diners] than pulpits for [chefs].”

• The Kansas City Star has an article on the basics of lentils, including preparation tips and recipes. Iron Chef America’s “Battle Lentil” is one of the classic episodes, with Iron Chef Mario Batali offering 5 courses dedicated to lentils as the “food of the people.” For more on lentils, see this article on winter vegetable soups in the Boston Globe. For a behind-the-scenes look at Iron Chef America, see this article from the Hartord Courant.

• Finally, the San Francisco Chronicle covers dungeness crab, to mark the beginning of crab season. I remember my first encounter with dungeness crab at the Sea Garden, in Seattle. Directly across from the daunting China Gate, this glass-front restaurant, where we were the only family speaking English, is the “real deal.”

I hope this keep you all busy today! Maybe more to come later tonight.